A Day in the Life

In Maine, students learn hands-on, in the garden

BELFAST — The garden at Capt. Albert Stevens School is brimming with blossoms of morning glories, sunflowers, daylilies and pumpkins.

The garden fared well over the summer with adult volunteers tending to weeding and watering, including Jon Thurston, ed tech Dave Hurley, Hannah Raymond from the Tanglewood learning center and, more recently, Malia Demers, new FoodCorps AmeriCorps partner at CASS.

Last June, CASS was chosen to host a FoodCorps AmeriCorps service member for the 2018-19 school year with the mission of enhancing the school-wide culture of health through hands-on learning and connecting students to healthy food.

Demers, who is originally from Mount Desert Island, has been teaching students — through touching and tasting — about harvested vegetables from the CASS garden.

“We’re always thinking of ways to have kids slow down and observe,” Demers said. “Tasting is a good way to slow down and observe how food tastes.”